Highly-multiplexed simultaneous detection of nucleic acids encoding paired adaptive immune receptor heterodimers from a large number of samples

ABSTRACT

The invention is directed to methods for highly-multiplexed simultaneous detection of nucleic acids encoding paired adaptive immune heterodimers from a large number of biological samples containing lymphocytes of interest. Methods of the invention comprise performing a single pairing assay on a pool of source samples to determine nucleic acids encoding paired cognate receptor heterodimer chains in the combined pool. Separately, single-locus, high-throughput sequencing is performed on each individual sample to determine the plurality of sequences encoding one of the two receptor polypeptide chains. Pairs of cognate sequences determined in the pooled sample may then be mapped back to a single source sample by comparing the expression patterns of the single-locus sequences.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/072,162, filed Oct. 29, 2014, titled, “Highly-multiplexed Simultaneous Detection of Nucleic Acids Encoding Paired Adaptive Immune Receptor Heterodimers from a Large Number of Samples”, and is incorporated herein by reference, in its entirety, for all purposes.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Technical Field

The present disclosure relates generally to methods and compositions useful for multiplexed nucleic acid amplification and high-throughput sequencing of adaptive immune receptor nucleic acid molecules and pairing of nucleic acid molecules encoding cognate polypeptide chains of adaptive immune receptor heterodimers from a large number of biological samples.

Description of the Related Art

The adaptive immune system protects higher organisms against infections and other pathological events that can be attributable to foreign substances. Using adaptive immune receptors, antigen-specific recognition proteins are expressed by hematopoietic cells of the lymphoid lineage and are capable of distinguishing self from non-self molecules in the host. These lymphocytes can be found in the circulation and tissues of a host, and their recirculation between blood and the lymphatics has been described, including their extravasation via lymph node high endothelial venules, as well as at sites of infection, inflammation, tissue injury and other clinical insults. See, e.g., Stein et al., 2005 Immunol. 116:1-12; DeNucci et al., 2009 Crit. Rev. Immunol. 29:87-109; Marelli-Berg et al., 2010 Immunol. 130:158; Ward et al., 2009 Biochem. J. 418:13; Gonzalez et al., 2011 Ann. Rev. Immunol. 29:215; Kehrl et al., 2009 Curr. Top. Microb. Immunol. 334:107; Steinmetz et al., 2009 Front. Biosci. (Schol. Ed.) 1:13.

Accordingly, the dynamic nature of movement by lymphocytes throughout a host organism is reflected in changes in the qualitative (e.g., antigen-specificity of the clonally expressed adaptive immune receptor (immunoglobulin or T cell receptor), T cell versus B cell, T helper (T_(h)) cell versus T regulatory (T_(reg)) cell, effector T cell versus memory T cell, etc.) and quantitative distribution of lymphocytes among tissues, as a function of changes in host immune status.

The adaptive immune system employs several strategies to generate a repertoire of T- and B-cell antigen receptors with sufficient diversity to recognize the universe of potential pathogens.

Immunoglobulins (Igs) expressed by B cells are proteins consisting of four polypeptide chains, two heavy chains (H chains) and two light chains (L chains), forming an H₂L₂ structure. Each pair of H and L chains contains a hypervariable domain, consisting of a V_(L) and a V_(H) region, and a constant domain. The H chains of Igs are of several types: μ, δ, γ, α, and ε. The diversity of Igs within an individual is mainly determined by the hypervariable domain. The V domain of H chains is created by the combinatorial joining of three types of germline gene segments, the V_(H), D_(H), and J_(H) segments. Hypervariable domain sequence diversity is further increased by independent addition and deletion of nucleotides at the V_(H)-D_(H), D_(H)-J_(H), and V_(H)-J_(H) junctions during the process of Ig gene rearrangement. In this respect, immunocompetence is reflected in the diversity of Igs.

T cell receptors (TCRs) are expressed by αβ T cells or γδ T cells. TCRs expressed by αβ T cells are proteins consisting of two transmembrane polypeptide chains (α and β), expressed from the TCRA and TCRB genes, respectively. Similar TCR proteins are expressed in γδ T cells, from the TCRD and TCRG loci. Each TCR peptide contains variable complementarity determining regions (CDRs), as well as framework regions (FRs) and a constant region. The sequence diversity of αβ T cells is largely determined by the amino acid sequence of the third complementarity-determining region (CDR3) loops of the α and β chain variable domains, which diversity is a result of recombination between variable (V_(β)), diversity (D_(β)), and joining (J_(β)) gene segments in the β chain locus, and between analogous V_(α) and J_(α) gene segments in the α chain locus, respectively. The recombination of variable, diversity and joining gene segments in the TCR α and β chain loci allows for a large number of distinct CDR3 sequences to be encoded. CDR3 sequence diversity is further increased by independent addition and deletion of nucleotides at the V_(β)-D_(β), D_(β)-J_(β), and V_(α)-J_(α) junctions during the process of TCR gene rearrangement. In this respect, immunocompetence is reflected in the diversity of TCRs.

The γδ TCR is distinctive from the αβ TCR in that it encodes a receptor that interacts closely with the innate immune system. TCRγδ is expressed early in development, has specialized anatomical distribution, has unique pathogen and small-molecule specificities, and has a broad spectrum of innate and adaptive cellular interactions. A biased pattern of TCRγ V and J segment expression is established early in ontogeny as the restricted subsets of TCRγδ cells populate the mouth, skin, gut, vagina, and lungs prenatally. Consequently, the diverse TCRδ repertoire in adult tissues is the result of extensive peripheral expansion following stimulation by environmental exposure to pathogens and toxic molecules.

The V-D-J rearrangements are mediated via a recombinase enzyme complex in which the RAG1 and RAG2 proteins play a key role by recognizing and cutting the DNA at the recombination signal sequences (RSS), which are located downstream of the V gene segments, at both sides of the D gene segments, and upstream of the J gene segments. Divergent RSS reduce or even completely prevent rearrangement. The recombination signal sequence (RSS) consists of two conserved sequences (heptamer, 5′-CACAGTG-3′, and nonamer, 5′-ACAAAAACC-3′), separated by a spacer of either 12+/−1 bp (“12-signal”) or 23+/−1 bp (“23-signal”). A number of nucleotide positions have been identified as important for recombination including the CA dinucleotide at position one and two of the heptamer, and a C at heptamer position three has also been shown to be strongly preferred as well as an A nucleotide at positions 5, 6, 7 of the nonamer. (Ramsden et al. 1994 Nucl. Ac. Res. 22:1785; Akamatsu et al. 1994 J. Immunol. 153:4520; Hesse et al. 1989 Genes Dev. 3:1053). Mutations of other nucleotides have minimal or inconsistent effects. The spacer, although more variable, also has an impact on recombination, and single-nucleotide replacements have been shown to significantly impact recombination efficiency (Fanning et al. 1996 Cell. Immunol. Immunopath. 79:1, Larijani et al. 1999 Nucl. Ac. Res. 27:2304; Nadel et al. 1998 J. Immunol. 161:6068; Nadel et al. 1998 J. Exp. Med. 187:1495). Criteria have been described for identifying RSS polynucleotide sequences having significantly different recombination efficiencies (Ramsden et al. 1994 Nucl. Ac. Res. 22:1785; Akamatsu et al. 1994 J. Immunol. 153:4520; Hesse et al. 1989 Genes Dev. 3:1053, and Lee et al., 2003 PLoS 1(1):E1).

The somatic rearrangement process generally starts with a D to J rearrangement followed by a V to D-J rearrangement in the case of Ig heavy chain (IgH), TCR beta (TCRB), and TCR delta (TCRD) genes or involves direct V to J rearrangements in the case of Ig kappa (IgK), Ig lambda (IgL), TCR alpha (TCRA), and TCR gamma (TCRG) genes. The sequences between rearranging gene segments are generally deleted in the form of a circular excision product, also called TCR excision circle (TREC) or B cell receptor excision circle (BREC).

The many different combinations of V, D, and J gene segments represent the so-called combinatorial repertoire, which is estimated to be at least 10⁶ molecules; for example, ˜2×10⁶ for Ig molecules, ˜3×10⁶ for TCRαβ and ˜5×10³ for TCRγδ molecules. At the junction sites of the V, D, and J gene segments, deletion and random insertion of nucleotides occurs during the rearrangement process, resulting in highly diverse junctional regions, which significantly contribute to the total repertoire of Ig and TCR molecules, estimated to be >10¹².

Mature B-lymphocytes further extend their Ig repertoire upon antigen recognition in follicle centers via somatic hypermutation, a process, leading to affinity maturation of the Ig molecules. The somatic hypermutation process focuses on the V-(D-) J exon of IgH and Ig light chain genes and concerns single nucleotide mutations and sometimes also insertions or deletions of nucleotides. Somatically-mutated IG genes are also found in mature B-cell malignancies of follicular or post-follicular origin.

Several different strategies have been employed to sequence nucleic acids encoding adaptive immune receptors quantitatively at high-throughput, and these strategies may be distinguished, for example, by the approach that is used to amplify the CDR3-encoding regions, and by the choice of sequencing genomic DNA (gDNA) or messenger RNA (mRNA). Certain conventional high-throughput methods sequence only one chain of an adaptive immune receptor at a time, making it impossible to determine that DNA or RNA encoding both chains of a TCR or IG heterodimer originated from the same lymphoid cell. In order to reconstitute adaptive immune receptors for functional analysis, therapeutic use, or modeling or receptor-antigen binding, the paired chain polypeptides from a complete receptor heterodimer need to be identified as a pair.

Several strategies to pair adaptive immune receptor chains have been described in the art. One approach is to isolate individual B or T cells and physically link the heavy and light chains by bridge PCR prior to sequencing. See, e.g., Embleton et al., 1992 Nucleic acids research 20:3831-3837; Meijer et al., 2006 J. Mol. Bio. 358:764-772. Alternatively, the heavy and light chains can be barcoded at the single cell level. See, e.g. DeKosky et al., 2013 Nat. Biotech. 31:166-169; Dash et al., 2011 J. Clin. Invest. 121:288. (25, 27-31). Although single-cell methods have improved significantly, they are still technically challenging and limited in throughput. They also require intact single cells, which makes it difficult to assess infiltrating immune cells in tissue or solid tumors.

Applicants have recently developed new methods of pairing adaptive immune receptor heterodimer sequences based on the use of combinatorics to detect and characterize even very rare paired receptor sequences in complex biological backgrounds (see e.g., PCT/US2013/045994 and PCTUS2014/030859, each herein incorporated by reference). While these approaches are highly efficient in that they are able to generate tens of thousands of paired immune receptor sequences, they may present certain technical challenges. For example, the minimal experiment necessary to identify paired adaptive immune receptor sequences in a plurality of biological samples requires tens of millions of sequencing reads per individual sample analyzed. Previously described methods require that each sample of interest be analyzed in a separate pairing experiment. Such large experiments may impose considerable resource burdens in situations where a large number of different biological samples must be analyzed simultaneously. Moreover, in some cases, researchers may only be interested in the highest-frequency paired adaptive immune receptor sequences in a plurality of samples, and do not need information about all of the paired sequences in the plurality of samples.

Clearly there remains a need for improved compositions and methods for accurate, yet efficient, high-throughput pairing of adaptive immune receptor sequences in multiple biological samples. The presently described embodiments address this need and provide other related advantages.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Disclosed herein are methods to simultaneously pair rearranged nucleic acids encoding adaptive immune receptor heterodimer polypeptide sequences at high-throughput from a large number of biological source samples containing adaptive immune cells.

Accordingly, one aspect of the invention is a method for assigning a pair of first and second polypeptides that form a T-cell receptor (TCR) or Immunoglobulin (Ig) heterodimer to a single source sample among a plurality of source samples, including (1) obtaining a plurality of source samples each comprising T-cells or B-cells; (2) for each of the plurality of source samples, determining the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences encoding the first polypeptides of the TCR or Ig heterodimers present in the source sample and assigning the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences to the source sample; (3) pooling the plurality of source samples to form a combined population of cells; (4) determining from the combined population of cells, a plurality of cognate pairs of first and second rearranged nucleic acid sequences encoding first and second polypeptides of the TCR or Ig heterodimers; (5) comparing the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences determined in each of the source samples in (2) to the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences determined from the plurality of cognate pairs of rearranged nucleic acid sequences in (4) to assign each first rearranged nucleic acid sequence present in the combined population to a single source sample; and (6) for each first rearranged nucleic acid sequence assigned to a single source sample in step (5), assigning the cognate second rearranged nucleic acid sequence of the cognate pair identified in step (4) to the same single source sample.

In certain embodiments of the invention, the first rearranged nucleic acid sequence is a TCRB rearranged nucleic acid sequence, a TCRA rearranged nucleic acid sequence, an Immunoglobulin heavy chain (IGH) rearranged nucleic acid sequence, or an Immunoglobulin light chain (IGK of IGL) rearranged nucleic acid sequence.

In another embodiment of the invention, the step of determining a first rearranged nucleic acid sequence encoding the first polypeptide of the TCR or Ig heterodimer present in the source sample includes the steps of: for each source sample, amplifying rearranged nucleic acid molecules extracted from the source sample in a single multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using a plurality of V-segment primers and a plurality of J-segment primers to produce a plurality of rearranged nucleic acid amplicons, and sequencing said plurality of rearranged nucleic acid amplicons to determine sequences of the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences in each source sample. In yet another embodiment of the invention, the single multiplex PCR produces at least 10⁴ distinct amplicons representing a diversity of rearranged TCR or IG CDR3 sequences present in each of the samples.

In yet another embodiment of the invention, the plurality of V-segment primers and the plurality of J-segment primers consists of 15 to 50 nucleotides. In yet another embodiment of the invention, the V-segment primers includes a first sequence and a second sequence, wherein the first sequence is complementary to a portion of a first region of a TCR or IG V-encoding segment, the first region located immediately 5′ to a second region of the V-encoding segment where untemplated deletions occur during TCR or IG gene rearrangement, wherein the second region of the V-encoding segment is adjacent to and 5′ to a V-recombination signal sequence (V-RSS) of the V-encoding segment, wherein the first sequence is located 3′ to the second sequence on the V-segment primer, wherein the second sequence comprises a universal primer sequence, and wherein each of the J-segment primers has a first sequence and a second sequence, wherein the first sequence is complementary to a portion of a first region of a TCR or IG J-encoding segment, the first region located immediately 3′ to a second region of the J-encoding segment where untemplated deletions occur during TCR or IG gene rearrangement, wherein the second region of the J segment is adjacent to and 3′ to a J-recombination signal sequence (J-RSS) of the J-encoding segment, wherein the first sequence is located 3′ to the second sequence on the J-segment primer, wherein the second sequence comprises a universal primer sequence.

In another embodiment, the methods include performing a second amplification reaction by hybridizing tailing primers to regions within the rearranged nucleic acid amplicons. In yet another embodiment, the tailing primer includes a universal primer sequence, a unique barcode sequence, a random oligonucleotide sequence, and an adaptor sequence. In yet another embodiment, the unique barcode sequence is used to identify a particular source sample.

In another aspect of the invention, the step of determining from the combined population of cells, a plurality of cognate pairs of first and second rearranged nucleic acid sequences encoding first and second polypeptides of the TCR or Ig heterodimers includes the steps of: distributing cells from the combined population of cells into a plurality of containers, each container comprising a subpopulation of cells, generating a library of amplicons for each of the plurality of containers by performing a single multiplex PCR of cDNA molecules that have been reverse-transcribed from mRNA molecules obtained from the subpopulation of cells, performing high throughput sequencing of the library of amplicons to obtain a data set of a plurality of first and second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequences for each of the plurality of containers, determining a container occupancy pattern for each unique first adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence by assigning each unique first adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence to one or more containers, and determining a container occupancy pattern for each unique second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence by assigning each unique second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence to one or more containers, for each possible pairing of a unique first and second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequence to form a putative cognate pair, calculating a statistical probability of observing the container occupancy patterns, and identifying a plurality of a putative cognate pairs based on statistical probability.

In another embodiment of the invention, the step of identifying a plurality of a putative cognate pairs is based on said statistical probability having a score lower than a predetermined likelihood cutoff. In yet another embodiment, the methods include for each identified putative cognate pair, determining a false discovery rate estimation for a possible false pairing of the unique first adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence and the unique second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence; and identifying a plurality of cognate pairs of unique first and second adaptive immune receptor sequences as true cognate pairs that encode the adaptive immune receptors in the sample based on statistical probability and false discovery rate estimation.

In another embodiment, the plurality of first adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequences each includes a unique variable (V) region encoding sequence, a unique J region encoding sequence or both a unique J region encoding sequence and a unique C region encoding sequence, at least one barcode sequence, at least one universal adaptor sequence, and a sequencing platform tag sequence, and the plurality of second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequences each includes a unique V region encoding sequence, a unique J region encoding sequence or both a unique J region encoding sequence and a unique C region encoding sequence, at least one barcode sequence, at least one universal adaptor sequence, and a sequencing platform tag sequence.

In other embodiments, the plurality of source samples may include biological samples from different human subjects. In yet other embodiments, the biological samples may be derived from whole blood, solid tissue samples, cancerous or non-cancerous tissues. In other embodiments, the plurality of source samples may include from about 10 to about 100 samples, from about 100 to 1000 samples, or about 100 samples. In another embodiment, each container has a substantially equivalent number of cells. In yet another embodiment, there are least 10⁴ cells in each container.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 depicts results from an exemplary TCRA/TCRB pairing experiment performed on a combined pool of human tumor samples.

FIG. 2 depicts a false discovery rate analysis performed on the experiment depicted in FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 depicts predicted versus empirical false discovery rate (FDR) for 18 multiplexed tumor samples. The predicted FDR is supplied by a statistical model, and the empirical FDR is estimated by the fraction of cross-sample pairs. The empirical FDR was calculated by aggregating the results from three replicate pairSEQ plates.

FIG. 4 depicts histograms of pairing yields for 18 samples among the most frequent clones in each tumor. The top 10 (FIG. 4A) and top 100 (FIG. 4B) clones were identified as the most common TCRB repertoire sequences that had in-frame VDJ rearrangements and were observed in the pairSEQ cDNA data (expressed). Each histogram includes 18 data points (one per tumor sample).

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides unexpectedly advantageous methods for the accurate and efficient simultaneous pairing of adaptive immune receptor sequences from a large number of biological samples. In certain embodiments, the methods of the present invention may be applied to multiple biological samples. In some embodiments, the samples are obtained from different sources and contain cells of interest (e.g. T-cells or B-cells).

According to one embodiment of the methods of the invention, a multiplex PCR and high throughput sequencing experiment is performed on each of the source samples to determine the rearranged nucleic acid sequences encoding the complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) of single (i.e., a “first”) polypeptide chains of the adaptive immune receptor heterodimers present in a sample. In certain embodiments, this is referred to as “single-locus sequencing”. In some embodiments, each of the first polypeptide chains of the adaptive immune receptor heterodimers is observed in one and only one sample. Each of the determined first rearranged nucleic acid sequences is assigned to its respective source sample.

In another step, a single pairing assay is performed to determine cognate pairs of first and second rearranged nucleic acid sequences encoding the CDRs of first and second polypeptide chains of the adaptive immune receptor heterodimers. Sub-samples of the different source samples are pooled together to provide a combined population of cells. The combined population of cells are distributed across a plurality of wells. In each well, a multiplex PCR is performed to amplify the rearranged nucleic acid sequences encoding the complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) of first and second polypeptide chains of adaptive immune receptor heterodimers. Amplicons from each well are sequenced using high throughput sequencing methods. Based on the sequence reads determined from each of the wells, a pairing method is used to determine which rearranged nucleic acid sequences encode first and second polypeptide chains of an adaptive immune receptor heterodimer.

The resulting cognate pairs of sequences are then assigned to a single source sample of origin, amongst the totality of samples. This is accomplished by comparing the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences determined in each of the uncombined source samples to the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences determined in the combined population of cells to assign each first rearranged nucleic acid sequence present in the combined population of cells to the single source sample in which it is uniquely expressed amongst all source samples. In other words, a match is determined between a first rearranged nucleic acid sequence obtained from a source sample and a first rearranged nucleic acid sequence assigned to a cognate pair in the combined population of cells. Then, for each first rearranged nucleic acid sequence from the combined sample that is assigned to a single source sample, its cognate second rearranged nucleic acid sequence determined from the combined sample is likewise assigned to the same single source sample.

Thus, in this embodiment, the present invention advantageously provides a method in which a single pairing assay may be used to determine paired adaptive immune receptor heterodimer polypeptides present in a large number of different samples. The methods of the present invention provide a significant increase in efficiency over known pairing methods in the art, in which pairing information is limited to adaptive immune receptor heterodimers expressed in a single biological source sample. The absence of “sample multiplexing” in previously described methods requires that each sample of interest be analyzed in a separate pairing experiment. This shortcoming results in a proportional increase in the time and cost of sample analysis as the number of samples to be processed increases. In vast contrast, the methods of the present invention permit simultaneous pairing analysis of a significant number of unique samples, which drastically reduces time and resource input and improves efficiency. These and other embodiments of the present invention are disclosed in greater detail herein.

Definitions

Terms used in the claims and specification are defined as set forth below unless otherwise specified.

As used herein, adaptive immune receptor (AIR) refers to an immune cell receptor, e.g., a T cell receptor (TCR) or an Immunoglobulin (Ig) receptor found in mammalian cells. In certain embodiments, the adaptive immune receptor is encoded by a TCRB, TCRG, TCRA, TCRD, IGH, IGK, and IGL gene or gene segment.

The term “primer,” as used herein, refers to an oligonucleotide sequence capable of acting as a point of initiation of DNA synthesis under suitable conditions. A primer is complementary to (or hybridizes to) a target template (e.g., DNA, cDNA or mRNA template). Such conditions include those in which synthesis of a primer extension product complementary to a nucleic acid strand is induced in the presence of four different nucleoside triphosphates and an agent for extension (e.g., a DNA polymerase or reverse transcriptase) in an appropriate buffer and at a suitable temperature.

In some embodiments, as used herein, the term “gene” refers to the segment of DNA involved in producing a polypeptide chain, such as all or a portion of a TCR or Ig polypeptide (e.g., a CDR3-containing polypeptide); it includes regions preceding and following the coding region “leader and trailer” as well as intervening sequences (introns) between individual coding segments (exons), regulatory elements (e.g., promoters, enhancers, repressor binding sites and the like), or recombination signal sequences (RSSs), as described herein.

The nucleic acids of the present embodiments, also referred to herein as polynucleotides, and including oligonucleotides, can be in the form of RNA or in the form of DNA, including cDNA, genomic DNA, and synthetic DNA. The DNA can be double-stranded or single-stranded, and if single stranded can be the coding strand or non-coding (anti-sense) strand. A coding sequence which encodes a TCR or an Ig or a region thereof (e.g., a V region, a D segment, a J region, a C region, etc.) for use according to the present embodiments can be identical to the coding sequence known in the art for any given TCR or immunoglobulin gene regions or polypeptide domains (e.g., V-region domains, CDR3 domains, etc.), or can be a different coding sequence, which as a result of the redundancy or degeneracy of the genetic code, encodes the same TCR or immunoglobulin region or polypeptide.

The term percent “identity,” in the context of two or more nucleic acid or polypeptide sequences, refer to two or more sequences or subsequences that have a specified percentage of nucleotides or amino acid residues that are the same, when compared and aligned for maximum correspondence, as measured using one of the sequence comparison algorithms described below (e.g., BLASTP and BLASTN or other algorithms available to persons of skill) or by visual inspection. Depending on the application, the percent “identity” can exist over a region of the sequence being compared, e.g., over a functional domain, or, alternatively, exist over the full length of the two sequences to be compared.

For sequence comparison, typically one sequence acts as a reference sequence to which test sequences are compared. When using a sequence comparison algorithm, test and reference sequences are input into a computer, subsequence coordinates are designated, if necessary, and sequence algorithm program parameters are designated. The sequence comparison algorithm then calculates the percent sequence identity for the test sequence(s) relative to the reference sequence, based on the designated program parameters.

Optimal alignment of sequences for comparison can be conducted, e.g., by the local homology algorithm of Smith & Waterman, Adv. Appl. Math. 2:482 (1981), by the homology alignment algorithm of Needleman & Wunsch, J. Mol. Biol. 48:443 (1970), by the search for similarity method of Pearson & Lipman, Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. USA 85:2444 (1988), by computerized implementations of these algorithms (GAP, BESTFIT, FASTA, and TFASTA in the Wisconsin Genetics Software Package, Genetics Computer Group, 575 Science Dr., Madison, Wis.), or by visual inspection (see generally Ausubel et al., infra).

One example of an algorithm that is suitable for determining percent sequence identity and sequence similarity is the BLAST algorithm, which is described in Altschul et al., J. Mol. Biol. 215:403-410 (1990). Software for performing BLAST analyses is publicly available through the National Center for Biotechnology Information (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/).

The term “sufficient amount” means an amount sufficient to produce a desired effect, e.g., an amount sufficient to modulate protein aggregation in a cell.

The term “therapeutically effective amount” is an amount that is effective to ameliorate a symptom of a disease. A therapeutically effective amount can be a “prophylactically effective amount” as prophylaxis can be considered therapy.

Unless specific definitions are provided, the nomenclature utilized in connection with, and the laboratory procedures and techniques of, molecular biology, analytical chemistry, synthetic organic chemistry, and medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry described herein are those well-known and commonly used in the art. Standard techniques can be used for recombinant technology, molecular biological, microbiological, chemical syntheses, chemical analyses, pharmaceutical preparation, formulation, and delivery, and treatment of patients.

Unless the context requires otherwise, throughout the present specification and claims, the word “comprise” and variations thereof, such as, “comprises” and “comprising” are to be construed in an open, inclusive sense, that is, as “including, but not limited to.” By “consisting of” is meant including, and typically limited to, whatever follows the phrase “consisting of” By “consisting essentially of” is meant including any elements listed after the phrase, and limited to other elements that do not interfere with or contribute to the activity or action specified in the disclosure for the listed elements. Thus, the phrase “consisting essentially of” indicates that the listed elements are required or mandatory, but that no other elements are required and can or cannot be present depending upon whether or not they affect the activity or action of the listed elements.

It must be noted that, as used in the specification and the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an” and “the” include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.

As used herein, in particular embodiments, the terms “about” or “approximately” when preceding a numerical value indicates the value plus or minus a range of 5%, 6%, 7%, 8% or 9%, or greater, etc. In other embodiments, the terms “about” or “approximately” when preceding a numerical value indicates the value plus or minus a range of 10%, 11%, 12%, 13% or 14%, or greater, etc. In yet other embodiments, the terms “about” or “approximately” when preceding a numerical value indicates the value plus or minus a range of 15%, 16%, 17%, 18%, 19% or 20%, or greater, etc.

Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” or “an aspect” means that a particular feature, structure or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, the appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment” or “in an embodiment” in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics can be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments.

METHODS OF THE INVENTION

1. Samples and Cells

In certain embodiments, the methods of the present invention are drawn to methods of assigning a pair of first and second polypeptides that form a T-cell receptor (TCR) or Immunoglobulin (Ig) to a single source sample among a plurality of source samples. In some embodiments, the plurality of source samples each possess a distinct genetic makeup, i.e., each of the source samples is derived from a different subject possessing a unique repertoire of TCRs or Igs. In certain embodiments, the different subjects may be human or non-human mammals. In a preferred embodiment, the subjects are human subjects whose TCRs or Igs are of interest.

As described herein, “a plurality” of source samples may comprise from about tens to hundreds of source samples. One of skill in the art will recognize that the exact number of source samples will depend upon the particular application of the claimed methods and is therefore intended to be variable. In certain embodiments, the plurality of source samples may comprise from about 10 to about 100 samples. In other embodiments, the plurality of source samples may comprise from about 100 to about 1000 samples. In yet other embodiments, the plurality of source samples may comprise about 100 samples.

Any peripheral tissue can be a source to be sampled for the presence of B or T cells and is therefore contemplated for use in the methods described herein. Biological samples may include, but are not limited to a solid tumor tissue sample, a biopsy sample, skin, epithelial tissues, colon, spleen, a mucosal secretion, oral mucosa, intestinal mucosa, vaginal mucosa or a vaginal secretion, cervical tissue, ganglia, saliva, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), bone marrow, cord blood, serum, serosal fluid, plasma, lymph, urine, ascites fluid, pleural fluid, pericardial fluid, peritoneal fluid, abdominal fluid, culture medium, conditioned culture medium or lavage fluid. Peripheral blood may be a preferred tissue as it easily accessed. Peripheral blood samples may be obtained by phlebotomy from subjects. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) are isolated by techniques known to those of skill in the art, e.g., by Ficoll-Hypaque® density gradient separation. In certain embodiments, whole PBMCs are used for analysis.

In other embodiments, the source sample can be from a cancerous tissue, such as solid tumor sample from a skin or organ tumor biopsy. The tumor can be from sarcomas, carcinomas, or lymphomas. Examples include ovarian cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, and melanoma, and the like.

Other examples of source samples include urine, amniotic fluid surrounding a fetus, aqueous humor, bile, blood and blood plasma, cerumen (earwax), Cowper's fluid or pre-ejaculatory fluid, chyle, chyme, female ejaculate, interstitial fluid, lymph, menses, breast milk, mucus (including snot and phlegm), pleural fluid, pus, saliva, sebum (skin oil), semen, serum, sweat, tears, vaginal lubrication, vomit, water, feces, internal body fluids, including cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain and the spinal cord, synovial fluid surrounding bone joints, intracellular fluid is the fluid inside cells, and vitreous humour the fluids in the eyeball, or Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSF).

The source sample can be obtained by a health care provider, for example, a physician, physician assistant, nurse, veterinarian, dermatologist, rheumatologist, dentist, paramedic, surgeon, or a research technician. More than one sample from a subject can be obtained.

The source sample can be a biopsy. The biopsy can be from, for example, skin, ovary, breast, brain, liver, lung, heart, colon, kidney, or bone marrow. Any biopsy technique used by those skilled in the art can be used for isolating a sample from a subject. For example, a biopsy can be an open biopsy, in which general anesthesia is used. The biopsy can be a closed biopsy, in which a smaller cut is made than in an open biopsy. The biopsy can be a core or incisional biopsy, in which part of the tissue is removed. The biopsy can be an excisional biopsy, in which attempts to remove an entire lesion are made. The biopsy can be a fine needle aspiration biopsy, in which a sample of tissue or fluid is removed with a needle.

The source sample includes T-cells and/or B-cells. T-cells (T lymphocytes) include, for example, cells that express T cell receptors. T-cells include Helper T cells (effector T cells or Th cells), cytotoxic T cells (CTLs), memory T cells, and regulatory T cells. The sample can include a single cell in some applications (e.g., a calibration test to define relevant T cells) or more generally at least 1,000, at least 10,000, at least 100,000, at least 250,000, at least 500,000, at least 750,000, or at least 1,000,000 T-cells.

B-cells include, for example, plasma B cells, memory B cells, B1 cells, B2 cells, marginal-zone B cells, and follicular B cells. B-cells can express immunoglobulins (antibodies, B cell receptor). The sample can include a single cell in some applications (e.g., a calibration test to define relevant B cells) or more generally at least 1,000, at least 10,000, at least 100,000, at least 250,000, at least 500,000, at least 750,000, or at least 1,000,000 B-cells.

In certain related embodiments, preparations that comprise predominantly lymphocytes (e.g., T and B cells) or that comprise predominantly T cells or predominantly B cells, may be prepared. In other related embodiments, specific subpopulations of T or B cells may be isolated prior to analysis using the methods described herein. Various methods and commercially available kits for isolating different subpopulations of T and B cells are known in the art and include, but are not limited to, subset selection immunomagnetic bead separation or flow immunocytometric cell sorting using antibodies specific for one or more of any of a variety of known T and B cell surface markers. Illustrative markers include, but are not limited to, one or a combination of CD2, CD3, CD4, CD8, CD14, CD19, CD20, CD25, CD28, CD45RO, CD45RA, CD54, CD62, CD62L, CDw137 (41BB), CD154, GITR, FoxP3, CD54, and CD28. For example, and as is known to the skilled person, cell surface markers, such as CD2, CD3, CD4, CD8, CD14, CD19, CD20, CD45RA, and CD45RO may be used to determine T, B, and monocyte lineages and subpopulations in flow cytometry. Similarly, forward light-scatter, side-scatter, and/or cell surface markers such as CD25, CD62L, CD54, CD137, and CD154 may be used to determine activation state and functional properties of cells.

Illustrative combinations useful in certain of the methods described herein may include CD8⁺CD45RO⁺ (memory cytotoxic T cells), CD4⁺CD45RO⁺ (memory T helper), CD8⁺CD45RO⁻ (CD8⁺CD62L⁺CD45RA⁺ (naïve-like cytotoxic T cells); CD4⁺CD25⁺CD62L^(hi)GITR⁺FoxP3⁺ (regulatory T cells). Illustrative antibodies for use in immunomagnetic cell separations or flow immunocytometric cell sorting include fluorescently labeled anti-human antibodies, e.g., CD4 FITC (clone M-T466, Miltenyi Biotec), CD8 PE (clone RPA-T8, BD Biosciences), CD45RO ECD (clone UCHL-1, Beckman Coulter), and CD45RO APC (clone UCHL-1, BD Biosciences). Staining of total PBMCs may be done with the appropriate combination of antibodies, followed by washing cells before analysis. Lymphocyte subsets can be isolated by fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS), e.g., by a BD FACSAria™ cell-sorting system (BD Biosciences) and by analyzing results with FlowJo™ software (Treestar Inc.), and also by conceptually similar methods involving specific antibodies immobilized to surfaces or beads.

As described herein, source samples may be pooled to form a combined population of cells. In certain embodiments, the entire volume of each sample is pooled to form the combined population, while in other embodiments portions of each sample are pooled to form the combined population. One of skill in the art will recognize that the volume of each sample pooled will depend upon the number of cells from each sample desired to form the combined population of cells. The number of cells desired from each sample and the number of cells in the combined population will depend on the design of the particular experiment and is intended to be a flexible number. In certain embodiments, the number of cells present in the combined sample is from about 10⁵ to about 10⁷. In another embodiment, the number of cells in the combined sample is about 10⁶.

The source sample can include nucleic acid, for example, DNA (e.g., genomic DNA or mitochondrial DNA) or RNA (e.g., messenger RNA or microRNA). The nucleic acid can be cell-free DNA or RNA. In the methods of the provided invention, the amount of RNA or DNA from a subject that can be analyzed includes, for example, as low as a single cell in some applications (e.g., a calibration test) and as many as 10 million cells or more translating to a range of DNA of 6 pg-60 ug, and RNA of approximately 1 pg-10 ug.

In some embodiments, total genomic DNA can be extracted from cells by methods known to those of skill in the art. Examples include using the QlAamp® DNA blood Mini Kit (QIAGEN®). The approximate mass of a single haploid genome is 3 pg. Preferably, at least 100,000 to 200,000 cells are used for analysis of diversity, i.e., about 0.6 to 1.2 μg DNA from diploid T cells. Using PBMCs as a source, the number of T cells can be estimated to be about 30% of total cells.

In some embodiments, RNA can be extracted from cells in a sample, such as a sample of blood, lymph, tissue, or other sample from a subject known to contain lymphoid cells, using standard methods or commercially available kits known in the art. In other embodiments, cDNA can be transcribed from mRNA obtained from the cells and then used as templates in a multiplex PCR.

Alternatively, total nucleic acid can be isolated from cells, including both genomic DNA and mRNA. If diversity is to be measured from mRNA in the nucleic acid extract, the mRNA can be converted to cDNA prior to measurement. This can readily be done by methods of one of ordinary skill, for example, using reverse transcriptase according to known procedures.

2. High-Throughput Characterization of Rearranged Nucleic Acids Encoding Single Polypeptide Chains of Adaptive Immune Receptor Heterodimers (Single Locus Sequencing)

In certain embodiments, the methods of the present invention include the step of determining the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences encoding the first polypeptides of the TCR or Ig heterodimers present in each of a plurality of source samples. Methods for quantitative detection of sequences of substantially all possible TCR or Ig gene rearrangements present in a sample containing lymphoid cell DNA are described in Robins et al., 2009 Blood 114, 4099; Robins et al., 2010 Sci. Translat. Med. 2:47ra64; Robins et al., 2011 J. Immunol. Meth. doi:10.1016/j.jim.2011.09. 001; Sherwood et al. 2011 Sci. Translat. Med.3:90ra61; U.S. Ser. No. 13/217,126 (US Pub. No. 2012/0058902), U.S. Ser. No. 12/794,507 (US Pub. No. 2010/0330571), W0/2010/151416, W0/2011/106738 (PCT/US2011/026373), W02012/027503 (PCT/US2011/049012), U.S. Ser. No. 61/550,311, and U.S. Ser. No. 61/569,118, all herein incorporated by reference. The present invention is not intended to be limited to any one method and contemplates that many methods known in the art may be suitable for practicing the claimed invention. In preferred embodiments, the methods for determining TCR and/or Ig repertoire diversity are those described Applicants' pending applications, U.S. Ser. No. 12/794,507, filed on Jun. 4, 2010, U.S. Ser. No. 13/217,126, filed Aug. 24, 2011, and International App. No. PCT/US2013/062924, filed on Oct. 1, 2013, which are all incorporated by reference in their entireties. By way of illustration but not limitation, one exemplary embodiment of the methods of the invention is summarized herein as follows.

The methods of this embodiment the invention include 1) sophisticated construction of primers and methods for controlled and unbiased multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of all possible CDR3 regions that might be present in genomic DNA (or cDNA) derived from a given immune receptor (Ig or TCR) locus within each lymphocyte in a blood, bone marrow, or tissue sample, 2) high-throughput massively parallel signature sequencing of the amplified products, and 3) refined and formidable computational analysis of the raw sequence data output to eliminate “noise”, extract signal, trouble shoot technological artifacts, and validate process control from sample receipt through sequence delivery.

The present methods involve a single multiplex PCR method using a set of forward primers that specifically hybridize to V segments and a set of reverse primers that specifically hybridize to the J segments of a TCR or IG locus, where a single multiplex PCR reaction using the primers allows amplification of all the possible VJ (and VDJ) combinations within a given population of T or B cells.

Exemplary V segment and J segment primers are described in U.S. Ser. No. 13/217,126, U.S. Ser. No. 12/794,507, WO/2010/151416, WO/2011/106738 (PCT/US2011/026373), WO2012/027503 (PCT/US2011/049012), U.S. Ser. No. 61/550,311, and U.S. Ser. No. 61/569,118, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties.

A single multiplex PCR system can be used to amplify rearranged adaptive immune cell receptor loci from genomic DNA, preferably from a CDR3 region. In certain embodiments, the CDR3 region is amplified from a TCRα, TCRβ, TCRγ or TCRδ CDR3 region or similarly from an IgH or IgL (lambda or kappa) locus. Compositions are provided that comprise a plurality of V-segment and J-segment primers that are capable of promoting amplification in a multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of substantially all productively rearranged adaptive immune receptor CDR3-encoding regions in the sample for a given class of such receptors (e.g., TCRγ, TCRβ, IgH, etc.) to produce a multiplicity of amplified rearranged DNA molecules from a population of T cells (for TCR) or B cells (for Ig) in the sample. In certain embodiments, primers are designed so that each amplified rearranged DNA molecule is less than 600 nucleotides in length, thereby excluding amplification products from non-rearranged adaptive immune receptor loci.

In some embodiments, the method uses two pools of primers to provide for a highly multiplexed, single tube PCR reaction. A “forward” pool of primers can include a plurality of V-segment oligonucleotide primers used as “forward” primers and a plurality of J-segment oligonucleotide primers used as “reverse” primers. In other embodiments, J-segment primers can be used as “forward” primers, and V-segment can be used “reverse” primers. In some embodiments, an oligonucleotide primer that is specific to (e.g., having a nucleotide sequence complementary to a unique sequence region of) each V-region encoding segment (“V segment) in the respective TCR or Ig gene locus can be used. In other embodiments, primers targeting a highly conserved region are used to simultaneously amplify multiple V segments or multiple J segments, thereby reducing the number of primers required in the multiplex PCR. In certain embodiments, the J-segment primers anneal to a conserved sequence in the joining (“J”) segment.

Each primer can be designed such that a respective amplified DNA segment is obtained that includes a sequence portion of sufficient length to identify each J segment unambiguously based on sequence differences amongst known J-region encoding gene segments in the human genome database, and also to include a sequence portion to which a J-segment-specific primer can anneal for resequencing. This design of V- and J-segment-specific primers enables direct observation of a large fraction of the somatic rearrangements present in the adaptive immune receptor gene repertoire within an individual. This feature in turn enables rapid comparison of the TCR and/or Ig repertoires in individuals pre-transplant and post-transplant, for example.

In one embodiment, the present disclosure provides a plurality of V-segment primers and a plurality of J-segment primers, wherein the plurality of V-segment primers and the plurality of J-segment primers amplify all or substantially all combinations of the V- and J-segments of a rearranged immune receptor locus. In some embodiments, the method provides amplification of substantially all of the rearranged adaptive immune receptor (AIR) sequences in a lymphoid cell and is capable of quantifying the diversity of the TCR or IG repertoire of at least 10⁶, 10⁵, 10⁴, or 10³ unique rearranged AIR sequences in a sample. “Substantially all combinations” can refer to at least 90%, 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% or more of all the combinations of the V- and J-segments of a rearranged immune receptor locus. In certain embodiments, the plurality of V-segment primers and the plurality of J-segment primers amplify all of the combinations of the V- and J-segments of a rearranged adaptive immune receptor locus.

In general, a multiplex PCR system can use 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, or 25, and in certain embodiments, at least 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, or 39, and in other embodiments 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, or more forward primers, in which each forward primer specifically hybridizes to or is complementary to a sequence corresponding to one or more V region segments. The multiplex PCR system also uses at least 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7, and in certain embodiments, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 or 13 reverse primers, or 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, or 25 or more primers, in which each reverse primer specifically hybridizes to or is complementary to a sequence corresponding to one or more J region segments. In some embodiments, each reverse J primer is specific to a different J gene segment. In other embodiments, there is no common J primer that binds to all J gene segments.

Various combinations of V and J segment primers can be used to amplify the full diversity of TCR and IG sequences in a repertoire. For details on the multiplex PCR system, including primer oligonucleotide sequences for amplifying substantially all TCR and IG sequences, see, e.g., Robins et al., 2009 Blood 114, 4099; Robins et al., 2010 Sci. Translat. Med. 2:47ra64; Robins et al., 2011 J. Immunol. Meth. doi:10.1016/j.jim.2011.09. 001; Sherwood et al. 2011 Sci. Translat. Med. 3:90ra61; U.S. Ser. No. 13/217,126, U.S. Ser. No. 12/794,507, WO/2010/151416, WO/2011/106738 (PCT/US2011/026373), WO2012/027503 (PCT/US2011/049012), U.S. Ser. No. 61/550,311, and U.S. Ser. No. 61/569,118, which is each incorporated by reference in its entirety.

Oligonucleotides or polynucleotides that are capable of specifically hybridizing or annealing to a target nucleic acid sequence by nucleotide base complementarity can do so under moderate to high stringency conditions. For purposes of illustration, suitable moderate to high stringency conditions for specific PCR amplification of a target nucleic acid sequence would be between 25 and 80 PCR cycles, with each cycle consisting of a denaturation step (e.g., about 10-30 seconds (s) at greater than about 95° C.), an annealing step (e.g., about 10-30 s at about 60-68° C.), and an extension step (e.g., about 10-60 s at about 60-72° C.), optionally according to certain embodiments with the annealing and extension steps being combined to provide a two-step PCR. As would be recognized by the skilled person, other PCR reagents can be added or changed in the PCR reaction to increase specificity of primer annealing and amplification, such as altering the magnesium concentration, optionally adding DMSO, and/or the use of blocked primers, modified nucleotides, peptide-nucleic acids, and the like.

In certain embodiments, nucleic acid hybridization techniques can be used to assess hybridization specificity of the primers described herein. Hybridization techniques are well known in the art of molecular biology. For purposes of illustration, suitable moderately stringent conditions for testing the hybridization of a polynucleotide as provided herein with other polynucleotides include prewashing in a solution of 5×SSC, 0.5% SDS, 1.0 mM EDTA (pH 8.0); hybridizing at 50° C.-60° C., 5×SSC, overnight; followed by washing twice at 65° C. for 20 minutes with each of 2×, 0.5× and 0.2×SSC containing 0.1% SDS. One skilled in the art will understand that the stringency of hybridization can be readily manipulated, such as by altering the salt content of the hybridization solution and/or the temperature at which the hybridization is performed. For example, in another embodiment, suitable highly stringent hybridization conditions include those described above, with the exception that the temperature of hybridization is increased, e.g., to 60° C.-65° C. or 65° C.-70° C.

In certain embodiments, the primers are designed not to cross an intron/exon boundary. The forward primers in certain embodiments anneal to the V segments in a region of relatively strong sequence conservation between V segments so as to maximize the conservation of sequence among these primers. Accordingly, this minimizes the potential for differential annealing properties of each primer, and so that the amplified region between V and J primers contains sufficient TCR or Ig V sequence information to identify the specific V gene segment used. In one embodiment, the J segment primers hybridize with a conserved element of the J segment and have similar annealing strength. In one particular embodiment, the J segment primers anneal to the same conserved framework region motif. In certain embodiments, the J segment primers have a melting temperature range within 10° C., 7.5° C., 5° C., or 2.5° C. or less.

Oligonucleotides (e.g., primers) can be prepared by any suitable method, including direct chemical synthesis by a method such as the phosphotriester method of Narang et al., 1979, Meth. Enzymol. 68:90-99; the phosphodiester method of Brown et al., 1979, Meth. Enzymol. 68:109-151; the diethylphosphoramidite method of Beaucage et al., 1981, Tetrahedron Lett. 22:1859-1862; and the solid support method of U.S. Pat. No. 4,458,066, each incorporated herein by reference. A review of synthesis methods of conjugates of oligonucleotides and modified nucleotides is provided in Goodchild, 1990, Bioconjugate Chemistry 1(3): 165-187, incorporated herein by reference.

A primer is preferably a single-stranded oligonucleotide. The appropriate length of a primer depends on the intended use of the primer but typically ranges from 6 to 50 nucleotides, 15-50 nucleotides, or in certain embodiments, from 15-35 nucleotides. Short primer molecules generally require cooler temperatures to form sufficiently stable hybrid complexes with the template. A primer need not reflect the exact sequence of the template nucleic acid, but must be sufficiently complementary to hybridize with the template. The design of suitable primers for the amplification of a given target sequence is well known in the art and described in the literature cited herein.

As described herein, primers can incorporate additional features which allow for the detection or immobilization of the primer, but do not alter the basic property of the primer, that of acting as a point of initiation of DNA synthesis. For example, primers can contain an additional nucleic acid sequence at the 5′ end, which does not hybridize to the target nucleic acid, but which facilitates cloning, detection, or sequencing of the amplified product. The region of the primer which is sufficiently complementary to the template to hybridize is referred to herein as the hybridizing region.

As used herein, a primer is “specific” for a target sequence if, when used in an amplification reaction under sufficiently stringent conditions, the primer hybridizes primarily to the target nucleic acid. Typically, a primer is specific for a target sequence if the primer-target duplex stability is greater than the stability of a duplex formed between the primer and any other sequence found in the sample. One of skill in the art will recognize that various factors, such as salt conditions as well as base composition of the primer and the location of the mismatches, will affect the specificity of the primer, and that routine experimental confirmation of the primer specificity will be needed in many cases. Hybridization conditions can be chosen under which the primer can form stable duplexes only with a target sequence. Thus, the use of target-specific primers under suitably stringent amplification conditions enables the selective amplification of those target sequences which contain the target primer binding sites. In other terms, the primers of the invention are each complementary to a target sequence and can include 1, 2, or more mismatches without reducing complementarity or hybridization of the primer to the target sequence.

In particular embodiments, primers for use in the methods described herein comprise or consist of a nucleic acid of at least about 15 nucleotides long that has the same sequence as, or is substantially complementary to, a contiguous nucleic acid sequence of the target V or J segment. Longer primers, e.g., those of about 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 45, or 50 nucleotides long that have the same sequence as, or sequence complementary to, a contiguous sequence of the target V or J segment, will also be of use in certain embodiments. Various mismatches (1, 2, 3, or more) to the target sequence can be contemplated in the primers, while preserving complementarity to the target V or J segment. All intermediate lengths of the aforementioned primers are contemplated for use herein. As would be recognized by the skilled person, the primers can have additional sequence added (e.g., nucleotides that cannot be the same as or complementary to the target V or J segment), such as restriction enzyme recognition sites, adaptor sequences for sequencing, bar code sequences, and the like (see e.g., primer sequences provided herein and in the sequence listing). Therefore, the length of the primers can be longer, such as 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 65, 70, 75, or 80 nucleotides in length or more, depending on the specific use or need.

For example, in one embodiment, the forward and reverse primers are both modified at the 5′ end with the universal forward primer sequence compatible with a DNA sequencing nucleic acid sequence. Such universal primers sequences can be adapted to those used in the Illumina GAII single-end read sequencing system. Exemplary universal primer sequences and sequencing oligonucleotides are provided in U.S. Ser. No. 13/217,126, U.S. Ser. No. 12/794,507, PCT/US2011/049012, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties. In some embodiments, the forward and reverse primers are both modified at the 5′ end with an adaptor sequence that is not complementary to the V-segment, J-segment, or C-segment (target sequence) and can be used as a region complementary to a second set of primers or a sequencing oligonucleotide.

As would be recognized by the skilled person, in certain embodiments, other modifications may be made to the primers, such as the addition of restriction enzyme sites, fluorescent tags, and the like, depending on the specific application.

Also contemplated are adaptive immune receptor V-segment or J-segment oligonucleotide primer variants that can share a high degree of sequence identity to the oligonucleotide primers. Thus, in these and related embodiments, adaptive immune receptor V-segment or J-segment oligonucleotide primer variants can have substantial identity to the adaptive immune receptor V-segment or J-segment oligonucleotide primer sequences disclosed herein. For example, such oligonucleotide primer variants can comprise at least 70% sequence identity, preferably at least 75%, 80%, 85%, 90%, 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, or 99% or higher sequence identity compared to a reference polynucleotide sequence such as the oligonucleotide primer sequences disclosed herein, using the methods described herein (e.g., BLAST analysis using standard parameters). One skilled in this art will recognize that these values can be appropriately adjusted to determine corresponding ability of an oligonucleotide primer variant to anneal to an adaptive immune receptor segment-encoding polynucleotide by taking into account codon degeneracy, reading frame positioning and the like. Typically, oligonucleotide primer variants will contain one or more substitutions, additions, deletions and/or insertions, preferably such that the annealing ability of the variant oligonucleotide is not substantially diminished relative to that of an adaptive immune receptor V-segment or J-segment oligonucleotide primer sequence that is specifically set forth herein. As also noted elsewhere herein, in preferred embodiments adaptive immune receptor V-segment and J-segment oligonucleotide primers are designed to be capable of amplifying a rearranged TCR or IGH sequence that includes the coding region for CDR3.

According to certain embodiments, the primers for use in the multiplex PCR methods of the present disclosure can be functionally blocked to prevent non-specific priming of non-T or B cell sequences. For example, the primers can be blocked with chemical modifications as described in U.S. Publication No. 2010/0167353.

In some embodiments, the V- and J-segment primers are used to produce a plurality of amplicons from the multiplex PCR reaction. In certain embodiments, the V-segment primer sand J-segment primers can produce at least 10⁴, 10⁵, 10⁶ or greater amplicons representing the diversity of TCR or IG rearranged CDR3 molecules in the sample. In some embodiments, the amplicons range in size from 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 75, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500 to 1600 nucleotides in length. In preferred embodiments, the amplicons have a size between 50-600 nucleotides in length.

According to non-limiting theory, these embodiments exploit current understanding in the art that once an adaptive immune cell (e.g., a T or B lymphocyte) has rearranged its adaptive immune receptor-encoding (e.g., TCR or Ig) genes, its progeny cells possess the same adaptive immune receptor-encoding gene rearrangement, thus giving rise to a clonal population that can be uniquely identified by the presence therein of rearranged (e.g., CDR3-encoding) V- and J-gene segments that can be amplified by a specific pairwise combination of V- and J-specific oligonucleotide primers as herein disclosed.

Amplification Bias Control

Multiplex PCR assays can result in a bias in the total numbers of amplicons produced from a sample, given that certain primer sets are more efficient in amplification than others. To overcome the problem of such biased utilization of subpopulations of amplification primers, methods can be used that provide synthetic template compositions for standardizing the amplification efficiencies of the members of an oligonucleotide primer set, where the primer set is capable of amplifying rearranged DNA encoding a plurality of adaptive immune receptors (TCR or Ig) in a biological sample that comprises DNA from lymphoid cells.

In some embodiments, a template composition is used to standardize the various amplification efficiencies of the primer sets. The template composition can comprise a plurality of diverse template oligonucleotides of general formula (I):

5′-U1-B1-V-B2-R-J-B3-U2-3′  (I)

The constituent template oligonucleotides, of which the template composition is comprised, are diverse with respect to the nucleotide sequences of the individual template oligonucleotides. The individual template oligonucleotides can vary in nucleotide sequence considerably from one another as a function of significant sequence variability among the large number of possible TCR or BCR variable (V) and joining (J) region polynucleotides. Sequences of individual template oligonucleotide species can also vary from one another as a function of sequence differences in U1, U2, B (B1, B2 and B3) and R oligonucleotides that are included in a particular template within the diverse plurality of templates.

In certain embodiments, V is a polynucleotide comprising at least 20, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, or 210, and not more than 1000, 900, 800, 700, 600 or 500 contiguous nucleotides of an adaptive immune receptor variable (V) region encoding gene sequence, or the complement thereof, and in each of the plurality of template oligonucleotide sequences V comprises a unique oligonucleotide sequence.

In some embodiments, J is a polynucleotide comprising at least 15-30, 31-60, 61-90, 91-120, or 120-150, and not more than 600, 500, 400, 300 or 200 contiguous nucleotides of an adaptive immune receptor joining (J) region encoding gene sequence, or the complement thereof, and in each of the plurality of template oligonucleotide sequences J comprises a unique oligonucleotide sequence.

U1 and U2 can be each either nothing or each comprise an oligonucleotide having, independently, a sequence that is selected from (i) a universal adaptor oligonucleotide sequence, and (ii) a sequencing platform-specific oligonucleotide sequence that is linked to and positioned 5′ to the universal adaptor oligonucleotide sequence.

B1, B2 and B3 can be each either nothing or each comprise an oligonucleotide B that comprises a first and a second oligonucleotide barcode sequence of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 or 1000 contiguous nucleotides (including all integer values therebetween), wherein in each of the plurality of template oligonucleotide sequences B comprises a unique oligonucleotide sequence in which (i) the first barcode sequence uniquely identifies the unique V oligonucleotide sequence of the template oligonucleotide and (ii) the second barcode sequence uniquely identifies the unique J oligonucleotide sequence of the template oligonucleotide.

R can be either nothing or comprises a restriction enzyme recognition site that comprises an oligonucleotide sequence that is absent from V, J, U1, U2, B1, B2 and B3.

Methods are used with the template composition for determining non-uniform nucleic acid amplification potential among members of a set of oligonucleotide amplification primers that are capable of amplifying productively rearranged DNA encoding one or a plurality of adaptive immune receptors in a biological sample that comprises DNA from lymphoid cells of a subject. The method can include the steps of: (a) amplifying DNA of a template composition for standardizing amplification efficiency of an oligonucleotide primer set in a multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) that comprises: (i) the template composition (I) described above, wherein each template oligonucleotide in the plurality of template oligonucleotides is present in a substantially equimolar amount; (ii) an oligonucleotide amplification primer set that is capable of amplifying productively rearranged DNA encoding one or a plurality of adaptive immune receptors in a biological sample that comprises DNA from lymphoid cells of a subject.

The primer set can include: (1) in substantially equimolar amounts, a plurality of V-segment oligonucleotide primers that are each independently capable of specifically hybridizing to at least one polynucleotide encoding an adaptive immune receptor V-region polypeptide or to the complement thereof, wherein each V-segment primer comprises a nucleotide sequence of at least 15 contiguous nucleotides that is complementary to at least one functional adaptive immune receptor V region-encoding gene segment and wherein the plurality of V-segment primers specifically hybridize to substantially all functional adaptive immune receptor V region-encoding gene segments that are present in the template composition, and (2) in substantially equimolar amounts, a plurality of J-segment oligonucleotide primers that are each independently capable of specifically hybridizing to at least one polynucleotide encoding an adaptive immune receptor J-region polypeptide or to the complement thereof, wherein each J-segment primer comprises a nucleotide sequence of at least 15 contiguous nucleotides that is complementary to at least one functional adaptive immune receptor J region-encoding gene segment and wherein the plurality of J-segment primers specifically hybridize to substantially all functional adaptive immune receptor J region-encoding gene segments that are present in the template composition.

The V-segment and J-segment oligonucleotide primers are capable of promoting amplification in said multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of substantially all template oligonucleotides in the template composition to produce a multiplicity of amplified template DNA molecules, said multiplicity of amplified template DNA molecules being sufficient to quantify diversity of the template oligonucleotides in the template composition, and wherein each amplified template DNA molecule in the multiplicity of amplified template DNA molecules is less than 1000, 900, 800, 700, 600, 500, 400, 300, 200, 100, 90, 80 or 70 nucleotides in length.

The method also includes steps of: (b) sequencing all or a sufficient portion of each of said multiplicity of amplified template DNA molecules to determine, for each unique template DNA molecule in said multiplicity of amplified template DNA molecules, (i) a template-specific oligonucleotide DNA sequence and (ii) a relative frequency of occurrence of the template oligonucleotide; and (c) comparing the relative frequency of occurrence for each unique template DNA sequence from said template composition, wherein a non-uniform frequency of occurrence for one or more template DNA sequences indicates non-uniform nucleic acid amplification potential among members of the set of oligonucleotide amplification primers. The amounts for each V-segment and J-segment primer set used in subsequent amplification assays can be adjusted to reduce amplification bias across the primer sets based on the relative frequency of occurrence for each unique template DNA sequence in the template composition.

Further description about bias control methods are provided in U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/726,489, filed Nov. 14, 2012, U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/644,294, filed on May 8, 2012, and PCT/US2013/040221, filed on May 8, 2013, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties.

Sequencing

Sequencing may be performed using any of a variety of available high-throughput single molecule sequencing machines and systems. Illustrative sequence systems include sequence-by-synthesis systems such as the Illumina Genome Analyzer and associated instruments (Illumina, Inc., San Diego, Calif.), Helicos Genetic Analysis System (Helicos BioSciences Corp., Cambridge, Mass.), Pacific Biosciences PacBio RS (Pacific Biosciences, Menlo Park, Calif.), or other systems having similar capabilities. Sequencing is achieved using a set of sequencing oligonucleotides that hybridize to a defined region within the amplified DNA molecules. The sequencing oligonucleotides are designed such that the V- and J-encoding gene segments can be uniquely identified by the sequences that are generated, based on the present disclosure and in view of known adaptive immune receptor gene sequences that appear in publicly available databases. Exemplary sequencing oligonucleotides are described in Robins et al., 2009 Blood 114, 4099; Robins et al., 2010 Sci. Translat. Med. 2:47ra64; Robins et al., 2011 J. Immunol. Meth. doi:10.1016/j.jim.2011.09. 001; Sherwood et al. 2011 Sci. Translat. Med. 3:90ra61; U.S. Ser. No. 13/217,126, U.S. Ser. No. 12/794,507, WO/2010/151416, WO/2011/106738 (PCT/US2011/026373), WO2012/027503 (PCT/US2011/049012), U.S. Ser. No. 61/550,311, and U.S. Ser. No. 61/569,118, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties.

Any technique for sequencing nucleic acid known to those skilled in the art can be used in the methods of the provided invention. DNA sequencing techniques include classic dideoxy sequencing reactions (Sanger method) using labeled terminators or primers and gel separation in slab or capillary, sequencing by synthesis using reversibly terminated labeled nucleotides, pyrosequencing, 454 sequencing, allele specific hybridization to a library of labeled oligonucleotide probes, sequencing by synthesis using allele specific hybridization to a library of labeled clones that is followed by ligation, real time monitoring of the incorporation of labeled nucleotides during a polymerization step, colony sequencing, and SOLiD sequencing. Sequencing of the separated molecules has more recently been demonstrated by sequential or single extension reactions using polymerases or ligases as well as by single or sequential differential hybridizations with libraries of probes. These reactions have been performed on many clonal sequences in parallel including demonstrations in current commercial applications of over 100 million sequences in parallel. These sequencing approaches can thus be used to study the repertoire of T-cell receptor (TCR) and/or B-cell receptor (BCR).

The sequencing technique used in the methods of the invention can generate least 1000 reads per run, at least 10,000 reads per run, at least 100,000 reads per run, at least 500,000 reads per run, or at least 1,000,000 reads per run. The sequencing technique used in the methods of the invention can generate about 30 bp, about 40 bp, about 50 bp, about 60 bp, about 70 bp, about 80 bp, about 90 bp, about 100 bp, about 110, about 120 bp, about 150 bp, about 200 bp, about 250 bp, about 300 bp, about 350 bp, about 400 bp, about 450 bp, about 500 bp, about 550 bp, or about 600 bp per read. The sequencing technique used in the methods of the invention can generate at least 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500, 550, or 600 bp per read.

Example sequencing methods include, but are not limited to, true single molecule sequencing (tSMS), 454 sequencing (Roche), SOLiD sequencing (Applied Biosystems), SOLEXA sequencing (Illumina), SMRT Sequencing (Pacific Biosciences), nanopore sequencing, chemical-sensitive field effect transitor array sequencing, or sequencing by electron microscope, or other high-throughput sequencing methods known to those of skill in the art.

Processing Sequencing Data

As presently disclosed, there are also provided methods for analyzing the sequences of the diverse pool of uniquely rearranged CDR3-encoding regions that are generated using the compositions and methods that are described herein. As described above, amplification bias can be corrected using bias control synthetic templates.

Corrections can also be made for PCR errors and for estimating true distribution of specific clonotypes (e.g., a TCR or IG having a uniquely rearranged CDR3 sequence) in blood or in a sample derived from other peripheral tissue or bodily fluid.

In some embodiments, the sequenced reads are filtered for those including CDR3 sequences. Sequencer data processing involves a series of steps to remove errors in the primary sequence of each read, and to compress the data. A complexity filter removes approximately 20% of the sequences that are misreads from the sequencer. In some embodiments, sequences are required to have a minimum of a six base match to both one of the TCR or IG J-regions and one of TCR or IG V-regions. Applying the filter to the control lane containing phage sequence, on average only one sequence in 7-8 million passed these steps. Finally, a nearest neighbor algorithm is used to collapse the data into unique sequences by merging closely related sequences, in order to remove both PCR error and sequencing error.

Analyzing the data, the ratio of sequences in the PCR product are derived working backward from the sequence data before estimating the true distribution of clonotypes (e.g., unique clonal sequences) in the blood. For each sequence observed a given number of times in the data herein, the probability that that sequence was sampled from a particular size PCR pool is estimated. Because the CDR3 regions sequenced are sampled randomly from a massive pool of PCR products, the number of observations for each sequence are drawn from Poisson distributions. The Poisson parameters are quantized according to the number of T cell genomes that provided the template for PCR. A simple Poisson mixture model both estimates these parameters and places a pairwise probability for each sequence being drawn from each distribution. This is an expectation maximization method, which reconstructs the abundances of each sequence that was drawn from the blood.

In some embodiments, to estimate the total number of unique adaptive immune receptor CDR3 sequences that are present in a sample, a computational approach employing the “unseen species” formula may be employed (Efron and Thisted, 1976 Biometrika 63, 435-447). This approach estimates the number of unique species (e.g., unique adaptive immune receptor sequences) in a large, complex population (e.g., a population of adaptive immune cells such as T cells or B cells), based on the number of unique species observed in a random, finite sample from a population (Fisher et al., 1943 J. Anim. Ecol. 12:42-58; Ionita-Laza et al., 2009 Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 106:5008). The method employs an expression that predicts the number of “new” species that would be observed if a second random, finite and identically sized sample from the same population were to be analyzed. “Unseen” species refers to the number of new adaptive immune receptor sequences that would be detected if the steps of amplifying adaptive immune receptor-encoding sequences in a sample and determining the frequency of occurrence of each unique sequence in the sample were repeated an infinite number of times. By way of non-limiting theory, it is operationally assumed for purposes of these estimates that adaptive immune cells (e.g., T cells, B cells) circulate freely in the anatomical compartment of the subject that is the source of the sample from which diversity is being estimated (e.g., blood, lymph, etc.).

To apply this formula, unique adaptive immune receptors (e.g., TCRβ, TCRα, TCRγ, TCRδ, IgH) clonotypes takes the place of species. The mathematical solution provides that for S, the total number of adaptive immune receptors having unique sequences (e.g., TCRβ, TCRγ, IgH “species” or clonotypes, which may in certain embodiments be unique CDR3 sequences), a sequencing experiment observes x_(s) copies of sequence s. For all of the unobserved clonotypes, x_(s) equals 0, and each TCR or Ig clonotype is “captured” in the course of obtaining a random sample (e.g., a blood draw) according to a Poisson process with parameter λ_(s). The number of T or B cell genomes sequenced in the first measurement is defined as 1, and the number of T or B cell genomes sequenced in the second measurement is defined as t.

Because there are a large number of unique sequences, an integral is used instead of a sum. If G(λ) is the empirical distribution function of the parameters λ₁, . . . , λ_(S), and n_(x) is the number of clonotypes (e.g., unique TCR or Ig sequences, or unique CDR3 sequences) observed exactly x times, then the total number of clonotypes, i.e., the measurement of diversity E, is given by the following formula (I):

$\begin{matrix} {{E\left( n_{x} \right)} = {S{\int_{0}^{\infty}{\left( \frac{e^{- \lambda}\lambda^{x}}{x!} \right)d\; {{G(\lambda)}.}}}}} & (I) \end{matrix}$

Accordingly, formula (I) may be used to estimate the total diversity of species in the entire source from which the identically sized samples are taken. Without wishing to be bound by theory, the principle is that the sampled number of clonotypes in a sample of any given size contains sufficient information to estimate the underlying distribution of clonotypes in the whole source. The value for Δ(t), the number of new clonotypes observed in a second measurement, may be determined, preferably using the following equation (II):

$\begin{matrix} {{\Delta (t)} = {{{\sum\limits_{x}{E\left( n_{x} \right)}_{{{msmt}\; 1} + {{msmt}\; 2}}} - {\sum\limits_{x}{E\left( n_{x} \right)}_{{msmt}\; 1}}} = {S{\int_{0}^{\infty}{{e^{- \lambda}\left( {1 - e^{{- \lambda}\; t}} \right)}{{dG}(\lambda)}}}}}} & ({II}) \end{matrix}$

in which msmt1 and msmt2 are the number of clonotypes from measurements 1 and 2, respectively. Taylor expansion of 1-e^(−λt) and substitution into the expression for Δ(t) yields:

Δ(t)=E(x ₁)t−E(x ₂)t ² +E(x ₃)t ³  (III)

which can be approximated by replacing the expectations (E(n_(x))) with the actual numbers sequences observed exactly x times in the first sample measurement. The expression for Δ(t) oscillates widely as t goes to infinity, so Δ(t) is regularized to produce a lower bound for Δ(∞), for example, using the Euler transformation (Efron et al., 1976 Biometrika 63:435).

In one example, using the numbers observed in a first measurement of TCRβ sequence diversity in a blood sample, this formula (II) predicted that 1.6*10⁵ new unique sequences should be observed in a second measurement. The actual value of the second measurement was 1.8*10⁵ new TCRβ sequences, which suggested according to non-limiting theory that the prediction provided a valid lower bound on total TCRβ sequence diversity in the subject from whom the sample was drawn.

Additional description about the unseen species model and processing sequence data are described in Robins et al., 2009 Blood 114, 4099; Robins et al., 2010 Sci. Translat. Med. 2:47ra64; Robins et al., 2011 J. Immunol. Meth. doi:10.1016/j.jim.2011.09. 001; Sherwood et al. 2011 Sci. Translat. Med. 3:90ra61; U.S. Ser. No. 13/217,126, U.S. Ser. No. 12/794,507, WO/2010/151416, WO/2011/106738 (PCT/US2011/026373), WO2012/027503 (PCT/US2011/049012), U.S. Ser. No. 61/550,311, and U.S. Ser. No. 61/569,118, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties.

3. High-Throughput Pairing of Rearranged Nucleic Acid Sequences Encoding Adaptive Immune Receptor Heterodimer Polypeptides

In certain embodiments, the methods of the present invention include the step of determining from the combined population of cells, a plurality of cognate pairs of first and second rearranged nucleic acid sequences encoding first and second polypeptides of the adaptive immune receptor heterodimers. The present invention is not intended to be limited to any one pairing method and contemplates that many methods known in the art, including those herein disclosed, may be suitable for practicing the claimed invention.

In a preferred embodiment, the methods for determining pairs of TCR and/or Ig heterodimers are those described in PCT/US2014/030859, filed on Mar. 17, 2014, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. Other methods for pairing polypeptide chains of TCR and/or Ig heterodimers are described in PCT/US2013/045994, filed on Jun. 14, 2013, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. By way of illustration, but not limitation, one exemplary embodiment of the methods of the invention is summarized herein as follows.

The method of the invention relies on the observation that rearranged first and second nucleotide sequences are nearly unique for each clonal population of adaptive immune cells. Distinctive first and second sequences arise through recombination of gene segments and template-independent deletion or insertion of nucleotides at the V-J, V-D, and D-J junctions in somatic cells during lymphocyte development. This extraordinary diversity means that mRNAs encoding the heterodimeric polypeptide chains of a specific adaptive immune cell clone will usually be present only in sets of cells that include that clone. This extreme diversity may be leveraged by splitting a sample of adaptive immune cells into multiple subsets and then sequencing the first and second mRNA molecules to determine the presence or absence of each polypeptide chain in each subset. The first and second sequences from a clone should be seen in the same subsets of adaptive immune cells, and only those subsets.

In some embodiments, the method can involve extracting genomic DNA, rather than mRNA from cells in a sample, to amplify up the polypeptide chains of a specific adaptive immune receptor heterodimer.

Pairing the heterodimeric polypeptide chains then becomes a statistical problem: to declare a unique pairing, one must show that it is highly improbable for a given clone to occupy the same collection of adaptive immune cell subsets as another clone. The probability that a given clone occupies the same collection of adaptive immune cell subsets as another clone is close to zero for thousands of clones in an experiment using the methods of the invention.

In other embodiments, the method of the invention can be tuned to pair cognate adaptive immune receptor chains in any desired frequency range simply by changing the number of input adaptive immune cells per well. Other embodiments can also assay cognate pairs from multiple frequency bands in a single experiment by stratifying the number of input adaptive immune cells into subsets.

As described above, the method can be used to accurately pair TCR or IG sequences at high-throughput. For example, the methods of the invention can be used to pair a first polypeptide chain of an adaptive immune receptor heterodimer comprising a TCR alpha (TCRA) chain and a second polypeptide of the adaptive immune receptor heterodimer comprising a TCR beta (TCRB) chain. In addition, the methods of the invention can be used to pair a first polypeptide of the adaptive immune receptor heterodimer comprising a TCR gamma (TCRG) chain and a second polypeptide of the adaptive immune receptor heterodimer comprising a TCR delta (TCRD) chain. In another example, the methods of the invention can be used to pair a first polypeptide of an adaptive immune receptor heterodimer comprising an immunoglobulin heavy (IGH) chain and a second polypeptide of the adaptive immune receptor heterodimer that is selected from an immunoglobulin light IGL or an IGK chain.

The method provides steps for identifying a plurality of cognate pairs comprising a first polypeptide and a second polypeptide that form an adaptive immune receptor heterodimer, said adaptive immune receptor heterodimer comprising a T cell receptor (TCR) or Immunoglobulin (IG) from a single clone in a sample, the sample comprising a plurality of lymphoid cells from a mammalian subject. As described above, the method includes steps for distributing a plurality of lymphoid cells among a plurality of containers, each container comprising a plurality of lymphoid cells; generating a library of amplicons in the plurality of containers by performing multiplex PCR of cDNA molecules that have been reverse-transcribed from mRNA molecules obtained from the plurality of lymphoid cells. The library of amplicons include: i) a plurality of first adaptive immune receptor amplicons encoding the first polypeptide, each comprising a unique variable (V) region encoding sequence, a unique J region encoding sequence or both a unique J region encoding sequence and a unique C region encoding sequence, at least one barcode sequence, at least one universal adaptor sequence, and a sequencing platform tag sequence, and ii) a plurality of second adaptive immune receptor amplicons encoding the second polypeptide, each comprising a unique V region encoding sequence, a unique J region encoding sequence or both a unique J region encoding sequence and a unique C region encoding sequence, at least one barcode sequence, at least one universal adaptor sequence, and a sequencing platform tag sequence. The method also includes steps for performing high-throughput sequencing of the library of amplicons to obtain a data set of a plurality of first and second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequences.

In addition, the method includes determining a container occupancy pattern for each unique first adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence by assigning each unique first adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence to one or more containers, and a container occupancy pattern for each unique second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence by assigning each unique second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence to one or more containers, wherein each barcode sequence in the unique first or second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequences is associated with a particular container.

For each possible pairing of a unique first and second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequence to form a putative cognate pair, the method involves calculating a statistical probability of observing the container occupancy patterns, or observing any larger proportion of shared containers than expected by chance, given that the first and second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequences do not originate from the same clonal population of lymphoid cells, and identifying a plurality of a putative cognate pairs based on the statistical probability having a score lower than a predetermined likelihood cutoff.

Then, for each identified putative cognate pair, a false discovery rate estimation can be determined for a possible false pairing of the unique first adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence and the unique second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence. The method includes steps for identifying a plurality of cognate pairs of unique first and second adaptive immune receptor sequences as true cognate pairs that encode said adaptive immune receptors in said sample based on said statistical probability and said false discovery rate estimation.

In some embodiments, the statistical score can be a p-value calculated for pairing each putative cognate pair of unique first and second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequences. In one embodiment, calculating the statistical score comprises calculating a probability that the unique first and second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequences should jointly occupy as many or more containers than they are observed to jointly occupy, assuming no true cognate pairing and given the number of containers occupied by said unique first adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequence and the number of containers occupied by the unique second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequence.

Essentially, given any two adaptive immune receptor sequences, the method analyzes whether the two sequences co-occur in more containers than would be expected by chance. Given a total of N containers, a first adaptive immune receptor sequence (A) observed in a total of X containers, a second adaptive immune receptor sequence (B) observed in a total of Y containers, and Z containers in which both adaptive immune receptor sequences (A) and (B) are observed, the method provides that given sequence (A) is found in X out of N containers (X I N) and sequence (B) is found in Y out of N (Y I N) containers, a calculation of the probability that both sequences are found in Z or more containers.

In some embodiments, the lower the probability that the observed number of overlapping containers between A and B sequences could occur by chance, the more highly likely that their co-occurrence is not by chance, but is instead due to true cognate pairing.

Next, identifying a plurality of a putative cognate pairs that have a high likelihood of pairing based on the statistical probability can comprise for each unique first adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence identifying the unique second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence that has the lowest p-value score of matching, or for each unique second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence finding the unique first adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence that has the lowest p-value score of matching.

In other embodiments, determining a false discovery rate estimation comprises: calculating p-values for each of the plurality of putative cognate pairs identified in the sample; comparing the p-values for all of the plurality of putative cognate pairs with an expected p-value distribution, said expected p-value distribution calculated to represent an experiment where no true cognate pairs are present; and determining for each putative cognate pair, an expected proportion of false positive results such that all p-values at or below the p-value of the putative cognate pair are determined to represent a true cognate pairing.

In certain embodiments, calculating the expected p-value distribution comprises: permuting the containers in which each first and second adaptive immune receptor sequence has been observed in an otherwise-identical experiment with no true cognate pairs, and calculating the distribution of p-values associated with each putative cognate pair.

The method includes identifying a plurality of cognate pairs of unique first and second adaptive immune receptor sequences as true cognate pairs by selecting a plurality of putative cognate pairs that have p-values below a threshold calculated based on the false discovery rate estimation.

In one embodiment, the identified cognate pair of unique first and second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequences has a false discovery rate estimation of less than 1%. In other embodiments, the identified cognate pair of unique first and second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequences has a false discovery rate estimation of less than 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, 6%, 7%, 8%, 9%, or 10%.

The method can also include contacting each of said plurality of containers, under conditions and for a time sufficient to promote reverse transcription of mRNA molecules obtained from said plurality of lymphoid cells, with a first reverse transcription primer set. In certain embodiments, the (A) first oligonucleotide reverse transcription primer set comprises primers capable of reverse transcribing a plurality of mRNA sequences encoding the plurality of first and second adaptive immune receptor polypeptides for generating a plurality of first and second reverse-transcribed adaptive immune receptor cDNA amplicons, wherein the plurality of first reverse-transcribed adaptive immune receptor cDNA amplicons encoding the first adaptive immune receptor polypeptide comprise 1) a unique V region encoding gene sequence, and 2) a unique J region encoding gene sequence or both a unique J region encoding gene sequence and a unique C region encoding gene sequence, and wherein the plurality of second reverse-transcribed adaptive immune receptor cDNA amplicons encoding the second adaptive immune receptor polypeptide comprise 1) a unique V region encoding gene sequence, and 2) a unique J region encoding gene sequence or both a unique J region encoding gene sequence and a unique C region encoding gene sequence.

The first and second reverse-transcribed adaptive immune receptor cDNA amplicons are then amplified in a second reaction. The reaction begins by contacting each of said plurality of containers, under conditions and for a time sufficient to promote a multiplex PCR amplification of the first and second reverse-transcribed adaptive immune receptor cDNA amplicons with a second (B) and third (C) oligonucleotide primer sets. In some aspects, the (B) second oligonucleotide primer set comprises forward and reverse primers capable of amplifying the plurality of first reverse-transcribed adaptor immune receptor cDNA amplicons, wherein said forward and reverse primers each are capable of hybridizing to the first reverse-transcribed adaptive immune receptor cDNA amplicons.

Each pair of forward and reverse primers in the second oligonucleotide primer set is capable of amplifying the first reverse-transcribed adaptive immune receptor cDNA amplicons. The forward primers in the second oligonucleotide primer set comprise a first universal adaptor sequence and a region complementary to the V region encoding gene sequence. The reverse primers in the second oligonucleotide primer set comprise a second universal adaptor sequence and a region complementary to the J region encoding gene sequence or the C region encoding gene sequence.

The (C) third oligonucleotide primer set comprises forward and reverse primers capable of amplifying the plurality of reverse-transcribed second adaptive immune receptor cDNA amplicons. Each pair of forward and reverse primers in the third oligonucleotide primer set is capable of amplifying the second reverse-transcribed adaptive immune receptor cDNA amplicons. In one aspect, the forward primers in the third oligonucleotide primer set comprise a first universal adaptor sequence and a region complementary to the V region encoding gene sequence. The reverse primers in the third oligonucleotide primer set comprise a second universal adaptor sequence and a region complementary to the J region encoding gene sequence or complementary to the C region encoding gene sequence.

The method also includes generating i) a plurality of third adaptive immune receptor amplicons each comprising a unique V region encoding gene sequence, or complement thereof, a unique J region encoding gene sequence or both a unique J region encoding gene sequence and a unique C region encoding gene sequence, or complement thereof, and the first and second universal adaptor sequences, and ii) a plurality of fourth adaptive immune receptor amplicons each comprising a unique V region encoding gene sequence, or complement thereof, a unique J region encoding gene sequence or both a unique J region encoding gene sequence and a unique C region encoding gene sequence, or complement thereof, and the first and second universal adaptor sequences.

The plurality of third adaptive immune receptor amplicons and the plurality of fourth adaptive immune receptor amplicons are then amplified with additional primers. The method includes contacting each of the plurality of containers, under conditions and for a time sufficient to promote a second multiplex PCR amplification of the plurality of third and fourth adaptive immune receptor amplicons with a fourth (D) oligonucleotide primer set and fifth (E) oligonucleotide primer set.

In one embodiment, the (D) fourth oligonucleotide primer set comprises forward and reverse primers capable of amplifying the plurality of third adaptor immune receptor amplicons, wherein the forward and reverse primers each are capable of hybridizing to the third adaptive immune receptor amplicons. Each pair of forward and reverse primers in the fourth oligonucleotide primer set is capable of amplifying said third adaptor immune receptor amplicons.

The forward primer in the fourth oligonucleotide primer set comprises a sequencing platform tag sequence and a region complementary to the first universal adaptor sequence in the plurality of third adaptive immune receptor amplicon and the reverse primer comprises a sequencing platform tag sequence and a region complementary to the second universal adaptor sequence in the plurality of third adaptive immune receptor amplicons. In another embodiment, either one or both of the forward and reverse primers in the fourth oligonucleotide primer set comprises a unique barcode sequence associated with the container in which the fourth oligonucleotide primer set is introduced.

The (E) fifth oligonucleotide primer set comprises forward and reverse primers capable of amplifying the plurality of fourth adaptor immune receptor amplicons, wherein the forward and reverse primers each are capable of hybridizing to the fourth adaptive immune receptor amplicons. Each pair of forward and reverse primers in said fourth oligonucleotide primer set is capable of amplifying said plurality of fourth adaptor immune receptor amplicons. The forward primer in the fifth oligonucleotide primer set comprises a sequencing platform tag sequence and a region complementary to the first universal adaptor sequence in the plurality of fourth adaptive immune receptor amplicons, and the reverse primer in the fifth oligonucleotide primer set comprises a sequencing platform tag sequence and a region complementary to the second universal adaptor sequence in the plurality of fourth adaptive immune receptor amplicons.

Either one or both of the forward and reverse primers of the fourth oligonucleotide primer set comprises a unique barcode sequence associated with the container in which the fourth oligonucleotide primer set is introduced, thereby generating the library of amplicons comprising the plurality of first adaptive immune receptor amplicons and the plurality of second adaptive immune receptor amplicons.

Next, the method includes combining the library of amplicons from the plurality of containers into a mixture for sequencing. Methods for high-throughput sequencing are described in detail above and in U.S. Ser. No. 13/217,126, U.S. Ser. No. 12/794,507, PCT/US2011/026373, or PCT/US2011/049012, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties.

In one aspect, the plurality of first adaptive immune receptor amplicons comprise a C region encoding sequence. In some aspects, the plurality of second adaptive immune receptor amplicons comprise a C region encoding sequence.

In some cases, the sample comprises a blood sample. In another embodiment, the sample comprises a tissue sample. In certain embodiments, the sample comprises a sample purified or cultured human lymphoid cells. In other embodiments, the container comprises at least 104 lymphoid cells. In another embodiment, the sample comprises at least 104 cells.

The method is applicable to various adaptive immune receptor loci, as described above, such as pairing of a TCR alpha (TCRA) chain and a TCR beta (TCRB) chain, a TCR gamma (TCRG) chain and a TCR delta (TCRD) chain, or an immunoglobulin heavy (IGH) chain and an immunoglobulin light IGL or an IGK chain.

Where the first polypeptide of the adaptive immune receptor heterodimer is an IGH chain and the second polypeptide of the adaptive immune receptor heterodimer is both IGL and IGK, then three different amplification primer sets are used comprising: a first oligonucleotide amplification primer set for IGH, a second oligonucleotide amplification primer set for IGK, and a third oligonucleotide amplification primer set for IGL.

Thus, the methods and compositions of the invention can be found useful in many applications in immunology, medicine, and therapeutic development. The methods of the invention offer opportunities for investigating connections between the primary sequences of a collection of selected immune receptors and the target(s) (and epitopes) that caused their selection. With attention to experimental design and control of variables (e.g., HLA type), the methods of the invention can be a useful approach for identifying critical TCRs from tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, for establishing new criteria for responsiveness to routine or experimental vaccination, and for epidemiological analysis of public exposures and shared responses. The methods of the invention also provide information on the relative contribution of each independent chain to a given response. In addition, our approach provides data on whether there might be physical TCR chain attributes that govern a particular immune response. For example, constraints on the length or biophysical parameters of one or both chains for a given type of response to a given type of antigenic challenge. The methods of the invention can be run with standard laboratory supplies and equipment, without the need for specialized expertise, and the starting sample type has a broad potential range (tumor samples, sorted cells, cells in suspension, etc.). This technology is designed to be scalable and accessible to a variety of laboratories.

It is important to recognize that the methods of the invention can be applied to and will work equally well for TCRγ/δ, and for linking the immunoglobulin heavy and light chains (IGH with IGK or IGL). Given the practical interest in monoclonal antibody development, as well as the general importance of the humoral immune response, the methods of the invention have the potential to become an important technology for biomedical discovery.

4. Assigning Cognate Pairs of First and Second Rearranged Nucleic Acid Molecules Encoding Adaptive Immune Receptor Heterodimers to a Single Source Sample

Using the methods described above, the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences are determined in each of the source samples during single-locus sequencing as described in Section 2. Moreover, the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences are determined in the combined sample during a pairing experiment as described above in Section 3. In certain embodiments, the methods of the invention include comparing the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences determined in each of the source samples during single-locus sequencing with first rearranged nucleic acid sequences determined in the combined sample during a pairing experiment to assign each first rearranged nucleic acid sequence in the combined population to a single source sample. Subsequently, each cognate second rearranged nucleic acid sequence identified as paired with each first rearranged nucleic acid sequence assigned to a single source sample can be assigned to the same single source sample.

Without wishing to be bound by theory, because first chain (e.g. TCRB or IgH) sequences are very unique, it is predicted that most will be detected in one and only one biological source sample. Thus, each cognate pair of sequences identified in the combined sample can be assigned back to a single source sample. By mixing many source samples together before doing a pairing experiment, as described herein, nucleic acid sequences encoding high-frequency adaptive immune receptor heterodimers may be detected from a single pairing experiment. In certain embodiments, high frequency receptors are present at a frequency of about 1:100 to about 1:1000 in a single source sample. By performing single-locus sequencing on each source sample in parallel to the single pairing experiment, high frequency paired sequences can be assigned to a single source sample amongst a plurality of unrelated samples.

EXAMPLES Example 1: Assignment of Paired TRCA and TCRB Sequences to Tumor Samples of Origin

This example demonstrates proof-of-concept of one embodiment of the methods of the present invention. By way of non-limiting overview, the method of simultaneously assigning paired nucleic acids encoding immune receptor heterodimers includes the following steps:

(a) Start with a plurality of biological samples, each sample including that lymphocytes with paired TCR or Ig receptor sequences of interest;

(b) Mix equal volumes of aqueous solution including cells from each biological sample to generate a mixed sample of lymphocytes;

(c) Perform high-throughput discovery of cognate antigen receptor TCR chain pairs or Ig heavy/light chain pairs for the mixed sample (“pairing,” for example, as described in Section 3 above);

(d) for each individual biological sample, perform high-throughput sequencing of one chain of the pair (e.g., heavy chain alone), without pairing information (“single-locus sequencing,” for example, as described in Section 2 above), thereby assigning one sequence of the pair (e.g., the heavy chain sequence) to an individual biological sample;

(e) for each pair identified in (c), examine the assigned chain sequence (e.g., the heavy chain sequence). Where assigned chain sequences are observed in one and only one sample in (d), assign cognate pairs identified in (c) to the original biological sample in which the heavy chain alone is uniquely expressed.

In the following experiment, paired TCRA and TCRB sequences were assigned to samples of origin by performing a single pairing experiment on pooled tumor samples, as summarized above. Briefly, 10 tumor samples (five kidney tumor samples and five ovarian tumor samples) were obtained from different individuals. Tumors were processed according to standard procedures to provide dissociated cellular suspensions containing lymphocytes. Equal volumes of the aqueous cellular suspensions were mixed to provide a combined population of cells. High-throughput discovery of cognate antigen receptor heavy/light chain pairs for the mixed sample was performed as described above to identify paired TCRA/TCRB sequences encoding CDRs TCRα:β heterodimers. In this part of the experiment, a 96-well plate was split into 3 subsets of 32 wells. Each subset of wells was allocated 100, 50, and 10 T-cells per tumor, however, the same number of T-cells was not allocated to every well on a plate. By doing so, the goal was to capture tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes of different frequencies.

In parallel, single-locus sequencing of genomic DNA was performed separately on 25-50 ng DNA from each tumor, in five replicates each, separately for TCRA and TCRB, as further described herein. Paired TCRA/TCRB sequences were mapped to tumors of origin by using exact string matches between the paired sequences and the single-locus sequences with the requirement that both sequences in a pair map exclusively to one sample of origin.

FIG. 1 shows the number of TCRA/B pairs that could be assigned back to sample of origin for each tumor. Remarkably, over 1,500 pairs of TCRA/B sequences called at a false discovery rate (FDR) of 1% were recovered and each mapped to a single tumor sample of origin.

To experimentally confirm the accuracy of the sequence pairing and the FDR prediction, the TCRA sequences of each source sample were determined by single-locus sequencing. The TCRA sequences were used to determine the percent of cognate TCRA/B sequences identified in the pairing experiment that actually map to the same source sample (“true pairs”). Of the >1,500 called pairs, there were 731 pairs whose TCRA and TCRB sequences could be unambiguously assigned, and the majority of these were found to map to a single sample as true pairs. The remaining number of false pairs was determined to be six, nearly matching the prediction of seven false pairs provided by the FDR model. The results of this analysis are depicted graphically in FIG. 2. Importantly, these results demonstrate that over 1,500 pairs of TCR sequences can be recovered from a complex mixture of tumor samples and assigned to a single source with high confidence by practicing the unique experimental strategy described herein.

Example 2: Assignment of Paired TRCA and TCRB Sequences to Tumor Samples of Origin

This example provides validation for an approach for multiplexing samples on a multi-well plate, wherein a pairing experiment to pair TCRs from 18 tumor samples was conducted in parallel.

The TCRA and TCRB repertoire of each tumor sample was first sequenced, and the frequency of each clone and the number of T cells in each sample of the repertoire was estimated. This information was then used to determine the optimal number of input cells to obtain from each tumor to capture the most common clones in a pairing experiment. The indicated amounts of input material from all 18 tumors were mixed, the cells were distributed across three 96-well plates (technical replicates), and a pairing assay was conducted on each plate.

With multiplexed experiments that include samples with known TCRA and TCRB repertoires, it is possible to directly measure the false discovery rate (FDR) by counting “cross-sample pairs”—i.e., TCR pairs with a TCRA sequence from one sample and a TCRB sequence from another. FIG. 3 compares the empirical FDR from cross-sample pairs (y-axis) with the FDR from our statistical model (x-axis) for predicted FDR values. The predicted values are accurate at FDR thresholds of 2% or lower and somewhat conservative (lower than the empirical FDR) at FDR thresholds of 5% or greater. These results confirm that the method can control the FDR on a multiplexed multi-well plate at a range of desired stringencies.

High pairing yields for all input samples in a multiplexed reaction can be achieved. FIG. 4 illustrates the pairing yields for the 18 multiplexed tumors. For the 10 most frequent, FIG. 4A, or the 100 most frequent, FIG. 4B, productive TCRB sequences in each tumor's repertoire, the histograms show the number of clones that were paired with high confidence, FDR ≦1%. For 12 of the 18 tumors, all ten of the most frequent clones were successfully paired, and at least seven of the top ten clones were paired in 17/18 samples (FIG. 4A). Similarly, at least 70 of the 100 most frequent clones were paired in 14/18 samples (FIG. 4B), while the remaining samples had lower yields due to limited input material. The most frequent clone was successfully paired in each tumor. The total number of pairs per sample ranged from 32 to 1,204, with a median of 404.

The various embodiments described above can be combined to provide further embodiments. All of the U.S. patents, U.S. patent application publications, U.S. patent applications, foreign patents, foreign patent applications and non-patent publications referred to in this specification and are incorporated herein by reference, in their entirety. Aspects of the embodiments can be modified, if necessary to employ concepts of the various patents, applications and publications to provide yet further embodiments.

These and other changes can be made to the embodiments in light of the above-detailed description. In general, in the following claims, the terms used should not be construed to limit the claims to the specific embodiments disclosed in the specification and the claims, but should be construed to include all possible embodiments along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled. Accordingly, the claims are not limited by the disclosure. 

1. A method for assigning a pair of first and second polypeptides that form a T-cell receptor (TCR) or Immunoglobulin (Ig) heterodimer to a single source sample among a plurality of source samples, comprising: (1) obtaining a plurality of source samples each comprising T-cells or B-cells; (2) for each of the plurality of source samples, determining the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences encoding the first polypeptides of the TCR or Ig heterodimers present in the source sample and assigning the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences to the source sample; (3) pooling the plurality of source samples to form a combined population of cells; (4) determining from the combined population of cells, a plurality of cognate pairs of first and second rearranged nucleic acid sequences encoding first and second polypeptides of the TCR or Ig heterodimers; (5) comparing the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences determined in each of the source samples in (2) to the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences determined from the plurality of cognate pairs of rearranged nucleic acid sequences in (4) to assign each first rearranged nucleic acid sequence present in the combined population to a single source sample; and (6) for each first rearranged nucleic acid sequence assigned to a single source sample in step (5), assigning the cognate second rearranged nucleic acid sequence of the cognate pair identified in step (4) to the same single source sample.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first rearranged nucleic acid sequence comprises a TCRB rearranged nucleic acid sequence.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first rearranged nucleic acid sequence comprises a TCRA rearranged nucleic acid sequence.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first rearranged nucleic acid sequence comprises an Immunoglobulin heavy chain (IGH) rearranged nucleic acid sequence.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first rearranged nucleic acid sequence comprises an immunoglobulin kappa or immunoglobulin lambda light chain rearranged nucleic acid sequence.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining a first rearranged nucleic acid sequence encoding the first polypeptide of the TCR or Ig heterodimer present in the source sample comprises the steps of: (a) for each source sample, amplifying rearranged nucleic acid molecules extracted from the source sample in a single multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using a plurality of V-segment primers and a plurality of J-segment primers to produce a plurality of rearranged nucleic acid amplicons, and (b) sequencing said plurality of rearranged nucleic acid amplicons to determine sequences of the first rearranged nucleic acid sequences in each source sample.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein said single multiplex PCR produces at least 10⁶ distinct amplicons representing a diversity of rearranged TCR or IG CDR3 sequences present in each of said samples.
 8. The method of claim 6, wherein each of said plurality of V-segment primers and said plurality of J-segment primers consists of 15 to 50 nucleotides.
 9. The method of claim 6, wherein each of said V-segment primers comprises a first sequence and a second sequence, wherein said first sequence is complementary to a portion of a first region of a TCR or IG V-encoding segment, said first region located immediately 5′ to a second region of said V-encoding segment where untemplated deletions occur during TCR or IG gene rearrangement, wherein said second region of said V-encoding segment is adjacent to and 5′ to a V-recombination signal sequence (V-RSS) of said V-encoding segment, wherein said first sequence is located 3′ to said second sequence on said V-segment primer, wherein the second sequence comprises a universal primer sequence, and wherein each of said J-segment primers has a first sequence and a second sequence, wherein said first sequence is complementary to a portion of a first region of a TCR or IG J-encoding segment, said first region located immediately 3′ to a second region of said J-encoding segment where untemplated deletions occur during TCR or IG gene rearrangement, wherein said second region of said J segment is adjacent to and 3′ to a J-recombination signal sequence (J-RSS) of said J-encoding segment, wherein said first sequence is located 3′ to said second sequence on said J-segment primer, wherein the second sequence comprises a universal primer sequence.
 10. The method of claim 7 further comprising performing a second amplification reaction by hybridizing tailing primers to regions within the rearranged nucleic acid amplicons.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the tailing primer comprises a universal primer sequence, a unique barcode sequence, a random oligonucleotide sequence, and an adaptor sequence.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the unique barcode sequence is used to identify a particular source sample.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining from the combined population of cells a plurality of cognate pairs of first and second rearranged nucleic acid sequences encoding first and second polypeptides of the TCR or Ig heterodimers comprises the steps of: (a) distributing cells from the combined population of cells into a plurality of containers, each container comprising a subpopulation of cells; (b) generating a library of amplicons for each of said plurality of containers by performing a single multiplex PCR of cDNA molecules that have been reverse-transcribed from mRNA molecules obtained from said subpopulation of cells; (c) performing high throughput sequencing of said library of amplicons to obtain a data set of a plurality of first and second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequences for each of said plurality of containers; (d) determining a container occupancy pattern for each unique first adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence by assigning each unique first adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence to one or more containers, and determining a container occupancy pattern for each unique second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence by assigning each unique second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence to one or more containers; (e) for each possible pairing of a unique first and second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequence to form a putative cognate pair, calculating a statistical probability of observing said container occupancy patterns; and identifying a plurality of a putative cognate pairs based on said statistical probability.
 14. The method of claim 13, wherein identifying a plurality of a putative cognate pairs is based on said statistical probability having a score lower than a predetermined likelihood cutoff.
 15. The method of claim 14, further comprising: for each identified putative cognate pair, determining a false discovery rate estimation for a possible false pairing of said unique first adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence and said unique second adaptor immune receptor amplicon sequence; and identifying a plurality of cognate pairs of unique first and second adaptive immune receptor sequences as true cognate pairs that encode said adaptive immune receptors in said sample based on said statistical probability and said false discovery rate estimation.
 16. The method of claim 13, wherein: (i) the plurality of first adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequences each comprises a unique variable (V) region encoding sequence, a unique J region encoding sequence or both a unique J region encoding sequence and a unique C region encoding sequence, at least one barcode sequence, at least one universal adaptor sequence, and a sequencing platform tag sequence, and (ii) the plurality of second adaptive immune receptor amplicon sequences each comprise a unique V region encoding sequence, a unique J region encoding sequence or both a unique J region encoding sequence and a unique C region encoding sequence, at least one barcode sequence, at least one universal adaptor sequence, and a sequencing platform tag sequence.
 17. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of source samples comprise biological samples from different human subjects.
 18. The method of claim 17, wherein the biological samples are derived from whole blood.
 19. The method of claim 17, wherein the biological samples are solid tissue samples.
 20. The method of claim 17, wherein the biological samples are selected from cancerous and non-cancerous tissues. 21-25. (canceled) 